Tajiks

Tajik (Dari: : Tjk, Tajik: ) is a general designation for a wide range of

Persian-speaking people of Iranian origin,[14] with traditional homelands in present-

day Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.

As a self-designation, the term Tajik, which earlier on had been more or less
pejorative, has become acceptable only during the last several decades, particularly Total population
as a result of Soviet administration in Central Asia.[14] Alternative names for the
c. 1620 million (estimates vary)
Tajiks are Frs (Persian), Frswn (Persian-speaker), and Dhgn (cf. Tajik:
, Dehqon, literally "farmer or settled villager", in a wider sense "settled" in
Regions with significant
contrast to "nomadic" and also described as a class of land-owning magnates during
populations
the Sassanid and early Islamic period).[15][16] 9,450,000
Afghanistan 11,550,000 (2014)
Not all Tajiks speak a variety of modern Persian. They may speak any one of the 2733%[1][2]
extant Iranian languages. For example, the Tajiks of China are actually Pamiris and
6,787,000 (2014)[3]
speak the Eastern Iranian Pamiri languages and are distinct from more western
Tajikistan
Tajiks.[17][18]
1,420,000 (2012,
Uzbekistan official)
other, non-official,

Contents scholarly estimates

are 8 11
1 History million[4][5][6]
2 Name
220,000[7]
3 Location Pakistan
3.1 Afghanistan
3.2 Tajikistan Russia 201,000[8]
3.3 Uzbekistan United 52,000[9]
3.4 Kazakhstan States
3.5 Kyrgyzstan
47,500[10]
3.6 Turkmenistan
3.7 Russia Kyrgyzstan
3.8 Pakistan China 39,642[11]
3.9 China
Canada 15,870[12]
4 Physical characteristics and genetics
Ukraine 4,255[13]
5 Culture
5.1 Language Languages
5.2 Religion Persian
6 Recent developments (varieties of Dari and Tajiki )
6.1 Cultural revival
Religion
7 See also
Predominantly Islam
8 Notes and references
Historically Zoroastrianism and
9 Further reading Buddhism
10 External links

History
 The Tajiks are an Iranian people, speaking a variety of Persian, concentrated in the
Oxus Basin, the Farna valley (Tajikistan and parts of Uzbekistan) and on both
banks of the upper Oxus, i.e., the Pamir Mountains (Mountain Badan, in
Tajikistan) and northeastern Afghanistan (Badan and Kbol).[19] Historically the
Tajiks were agriculturalists.[20]

The Bactrian and the Sogdian people are the principal ancestors of modern-day
Tajiks.[21][22] Regarding Tajiks, the Encyclopdia Britannicastates:

Monument of Amir Ismail Samani.
His reign saw the emergence of the
Samanids as a powerful force and
the spread of Sunni Islam deep into
Central Asia.
The Tajiks are the direct descendants of the Iranian peoples whose
continuous presence in Central Asia and northern Afghanistan is attested
from the middle of the 1st millennium BC. The ancestors of the Tajiks
constituted the core of the ancient population of Khwrezm (Khorezm)
and Bactria, which formed part of Transoxania (Sogdiana). Over the
course of time, the eastern Iranian dialect that was used by the ancient
Tajiks eventually gave way to Farsi, a western dialect spoken in Iran and
Afghanistan.[23]

According to Richard Nelson Frye, a leading historian of Iranian and Central Asian
history, the Persian migration to Central Asia may be considered the beginning of
the modern Tajik nation, and ethnic Persians, along with some elements of East-
Iranian Bactrians and Sogdians, as the main ancestors of modern Tajiks.[24] In later
works, Frye expands on the complexity of the historical origins of the Tajiks. In a
1996 publication, Frye explains that many "factors must be taken into account in
explaining the evolution of the peoples whose remnants are the Tajiks in Central
Asia" and that "the peoples of Central Asia, whether Iranian or Turkic speaking, Ghurid Empire at the peak of power
have one culture, one religion, one set of social values and traditions with only
language separating them."[25]

The geographical division between the eastern and western Iranians is often considered historically and currently to be the desert
Dasht-e Kavir, situated in the center of the Iranian plateau.

Name
According to Encyclopaedia Iranica:[19]

The most plausible and generally accepted origin of the word is Middle
Persian tzk Arab (cf. New Persian tzi), or an Iranian (Sogdian or
Parthian) cognate word. The Muslim armies that invaded Transoxiana
early in the eighth century, conquering the Sogdian principalities and
clashing with the Qarluq Turks (see Bregel, Atlas, Maps 810) consisted
not only of Arabs, but also of Persian converts from Frs and the central
Zagros region (Bartold [Barthold], Tadiki, pp. 45557). Hence the
Turks of Central Asia adopted a variant of the Iranian word, tik, to The Samanid Empire (819999) is
designate their Muslim adversaries in general. For example, the rulers of considered as the first Tajik state[26]

the south Indian Chalukya dynasty and Rashtrakuta dynasty also referred
to the Arabs as "Tajika" in the 8th and 9th century.[27][28] By the
eleventh century (Yusof -jeb, Qutadu bilig, lines 280, 282,
3265), the Qarakhanid Turks applied this term more specifically to the
Persian Muslims in the Oxus basin and Khorasan, who were variously
 the Turks rivals, models, overlords (under the Samanid Dynasty), and
subjects (from Ghaznavid times on). Persian writers of the Ghaznavid,
Seljuq and Atbak periods (ca. 10001260) adopted the term and
extended its use to cover Persians in the rest of Greater Iran, now under
Turkish rule, as early as the poet Onori, ca. 1025 (Dabirsiqi, pp.
3377, 3408). Iranians soon accepted it as an ethnonym, as is shown by a
Persian court officials referring to m tzikn we Tajiks (Bayhaqi, ed.
Fayyz, p. 594). The distinction between Turk and Tajik became
stereotyped to express the symbiosis and rivalry of the (ideally) nomadic
military executive and the urban civil bureaucracy (Nim al-Molk:
tzik, pp. 146, 17879; Fragner, Tdjk. 2 in EI2 10, p. 63).

According to the Encyclopaedia of Islam, however, the oldest known usage of the word Tajik as a reference to Persians in Persian
literature can be found in the writings of the Persian poet Jalal ad-Din Rumi.[29] The 15th century Turkic-speaking poet Mr Al er
Nav' also used Tajik as a reference to Persians.[30]

An example for the usage of the wordTajik in Persian literature is, for example, the writing ofSa'adi:

yad ki ba pdh bigoyand

Turke tu birext xune Tjik

It's appropriate to tell the King,

Your Turk shed the blood of Tajik

Location
The Tajiks are the principal ethnic group in most of Tajikistan, as well as in northern
and western Afghanistan, though there are more Tajiks in Afghanistan than in
Tajikistan. Tajiks are a substantial minority in Uzbekistan, as well as in overseas
communities. Historically, the ancestors of the Tajiks lived in a larger territory in
Central Asia than now.

Afghanistan
According to the World Factbook, Tajiks make up about 27% of the population in Tajik young girls during Navrz They
are holding sprouting plants which
Afghanistan,[2] but the Encyclopdia Britannica claims that they constitute about
symbolize rebirth.
one-fifth of the population.[31] They are predominant in four of the largest cities in
Afghanistan (Kabul, Mazar-e Sharif, Herat, and Ghazni) and make up the largest
ethnic group in the northern and western provinces of Balkh, Takhar, Badakhshan, Samangan, Parwan, Panjshir, Kapisa, Baghlan,
Ghor, Badghis and Herat.

In Afghanistan, the Tajiks do not organize themselves by tribes and refer to themselves by the region, province, city, town, or village
that they are from; such as Badakhshi, Baghlani, Mazari, Panjsheri, Kabuli, Herati, Kohistani etc.[32] Although in the past, some
non-Pashto speaking tribes were identified as Tajik, for example the Furmuli.[33][34]
 Tajikistan
Tajiks comprise around 79.9% of
the population of Tajikistan.[3] This
number includes speakers of the
Pamiri languages, including Wakhi
and Shughni, and the Yaghnobi
people who in the past were
considered by the government of Tajiks Celebrate Nawrooz in
the Soviet Union nationalities Afghanistan. Haft-Seen, White
separate from the Tajiks. In the House ceremony for new Persian
1926 and 1937 Soviet censuses, the Year, prepared by Laura Bush.
Yaghnobis and Pamiri language
speakers were counted as separate
T [35]
nationalities. After 1937, these groups were required to register as ajiks.

Burhanuddin Rabbani served as

President of Afghanistan Uzbekistan
In Uzbekistan, the Tajiks are the largest part of the population of the ancient cities of
Bukhara and Samarkand, and are found in large numbers in the Surxondaryo
Province in the south and along Uzbekistan's eastern border with Tajikistan.
According to official statistics (2000), Surxondaryo Province accounts for 24.4% of
all Tajiks in Uzbekistan, with another 34.3% in Samarqand and Bukhara
provinces.[36]

Official statistics in Uzbekistan state that the Tajik community comprises 5% of the
nation's total population.[37] However, these numbers do not include ethnic Tajiks
who, for a variety of reasons, choose to identify themselves as Uzbeks in population
View of the Registan in Samarkand census forms.[38] During the Soviet "Uzbekization" supervised by Sharof Rashidov,
although the second largest city of the head of the Uzbek Communist Party, Tajiks had to choose either stay in
Uzbekistan, it is predominantly a Uzbekistan and get registered as Uzbek in their passports or leave the republic for
Tajik populated city, along with Tajikistan, which is mountainous and less agricultural.[39] It is only in the last
Bukhara
population census (1989) that the nationality could be reported not according to the
passport, but freely declared on the basis of the respondent's ethnic self-
identification.[40] This had the effect of increasing the Tajik population in Uzbekistan from 3.9% in 1979 to 4.7% in 1989. Expert
[4][41]
estimates suggest that Tajiks may make up 35% of Uzbekistan's population.

Kazakhstan
According to the 1999 population census, there were 26,000 Tajiks in Kazakhstan (0.17% of the total population), about the same
number as in the 1989 census.

Kyrgyzstan
According to official statistics, there were about 47,500 Tajiks in Kyrgyzstan in 2007 (0.9% of the total population), up from 42,600
in the 1999 census and 33,500 in the 1989 census.

Turkmenistan
According to the last Soviet census in 1989,[42] there were 3,149 Tajiks in Turkmenistan, or less than 0.1% of the total population of
3.5 million at that time. The first population census of independent Turkmenistan conducted in 1995 showed 3,103 Tajiks in a
population of 4.4 million (0.07%), most of them (1,922) concentrated in the eastern provinces of Lebap and Mary adjoining the
borders with Afghanistan and Uzbekistan.[43]

Russia
The population of Tajiks in Russia is about 200,303 according to the 2010 census, up from 38,000 in the last Soviet census of
1989.[44] Most Tajiks came to Russia after thedissolution of the Soviet Union, often as guest workers.

Pakistan
There are an estimated 220,000 Tajiks in Pakistan, mainly refugees from Afghanistan and Tajikistan.[45] Their number was higher in
[7]
the 1990s, but in the last decade many have left Pakistan and returned to their native countries.

China
Chinese Tajiks or Mountain Tajiks in China (Sarikoli: [tudik], Tujik; Chinese: ; pinyin: Tjk Z), including Sarikolis
(majority) and Wakhis (minority) in China, are an extension of thePamiri ethnic group that lives in theXinjiang Uyghur Autonomous
Region in the People's Republic of China. They are Mountain Tajiks, unlike Plain Tajiks in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. They are one
of the 56 nationalities officially recognized by the government of China.

Physical characteristics and genetics

On the whole, Tajiks are a genetically diverse population, displaying a wide range of
phenotypes. Around 10% of Tajiks are said to have blond hair, more prevalent in the
Zarafshan and Pamir region, where they are known as Pamiri people.[46] Some
ethnic Tajiks, particularly those from Tajikistan, show clear Mongoloid admixture
possibly originating from their Kyrgyz and Uzbek neighbors. The dominant
haplogroup among modern Tajiks is the Haplogroup R1a Y-DNA. ~45% of Tajik
men share R1a (M17), ~18% J (M172), and ~8% R2 (M124). Tajiks of Panjikent
score 68% R1a, Tajiks of Khojant score 64% R1a.[47] The high frequency of
haplogroup R1a in the Tajiks probably reflects a strongfounder effect.[48]
Pamiri children in Tajikistan

Culture

Language
The language of the Tajiks is an eastern dialect of Persian, called Dari (derived from
Darbr, "[of/from the] royal courts", in the sense of "courtly language"), or also
Parsi-e Darbari. In Tajikistan, where Cyrillic script is used, it is called the Tajiki
language. In Afghanistan, unlike in Tajikistan, Tajiks continue to use the Perso-
Arabic script, as well as in Iran. However, when the Soviet Union introduced the A group of boys from Tajikistan.
Latin script in 1928, and later the Cyrillic script, the Persian dialect of Tajikistan
came to be considered a separate (Persian) language. Since the 19th century, Tajiki
has been strongly influenced by the Russian language and has incorporated many Russian language loan words.[49] It has also
adopted fewer Arabic loan words than Iranian Persian, while retaining vocabulary that has fallen out of use in the latter language. In
 Tajikistan, in ordinary speech, also known as zaboni kucha (lit. "street language", as
opposed to zaboni adabi, lit. "literary language", which is used in schools, media etc.), many
urban Tajiks prefer to use Russian loanwords instead of their literary Persian analogs.

The dialects of the Persians of Iran and of the Tajiks of central Asia have a common origin.
This is underscored by the Tajiks' claim to such famous writers as Rudaki, Ferdowsi, Anwari,
Rumi, Avicenna, Hafez and other famous Persian poets.Russian is widely used in government
and business in Tajikistan as well. Since Tajikistan gained independence, there has been a
public debate about whether Tajiki should revert to the Perso-Arabic script.
Tajik Republic coat of Arms
with Persian language:
Religion
Various scholars have recorded the
Zoroastrian, Buddhist, and Aryan pre-Islamic
heritage of the Tajik people. Early temples
for fire worship have been found in Balkh and Bactria and excavations in present-
[50]
day Tajikistan and Uzbekistan show remnants of Zoroastrian fire temples.

Today, however, the great majority of Tajiks follow Sunni Islam, although small
Twelver and Ismaili Shia minorities also exist in scattered pockets. Areas with large
numbers of Shias include Herat, Bamyan, Badakhshan provinces in Afghanistan, the Balkh Governor Atta Muhammad Nur
after visiting the Blue Mosque in
Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Province in Tajikistan, and Tashkurgan Tajik
Mazar-i-Sharif's in northern
Autonomous County in China. Some of the famous Islamic scholars were from East- Afghanistan.
Iranian regions lying in Afghanistan and Tajikistan today and therefore can arguably
be viewed as Tajiks. They include Abu Hanifa, Imam Bukhari, Tirmidhi, Abu
Dawood, Abu Mansur Maturidi, and many others. Since the Tajiks generally follow Islamic belief patterns. Belief in the supernatural,
outside of formal Islam, falls into several categories: curative customs, fortune-telling, and ascription of bad fortune to the power of
fate or of evil beings called jinn.

According to a 2009 U.S. State Department release, the population of Tajikistan is 98% Muslim, (approximately 85% Sunni and 5%
Shia).[51] In Afghanistan, the great number of Tajiks adhere to Sunni Islam. The smaller number of Tajiks who may follow Twelver
Shia Islam are locally called Farsiwan. The community of Bukharian Jews in Central Asia speak a dialect of Persian. The Bukharian
Jewish community in Uzbekistan is the largest remaining community of Central Asian Jews and resides primarily in Bukhara and
Samarkand, while the Bukharaian Jews of Tajikistan live in Dushanbe and number only a few hundred.[52] From the 1970s to the
1990s the majority of these Tajik-speaking Jews emigrated to the United States and to Israel in accordance with Aliyah. Recently, the
Protestant community of Tajiks descent has experienced significant growth, a 2015 study estimates some 2,600 Muslim Tajik
converted to Christianity.[53]

Tajikistan marked 2009 as the year to commemorate the Tajik Sunni Muslim jurist Abu Hanifa, whose ancestry hailed from Parwan
Province of Afghanistan, as the nation hosted an international symposium that drew scientific and religious leaders.[54] The
construction of one of the largest mosques in the world, funded by Qatar, was announced in October 2009. The mosque is planned to
[55]
be built in Dushanbe and construction is said to be completed by 2014.

Recent developments

Cultural revival
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the civil war in Afghanistan both gave rise to a resurgence in Tajik nationalism across the
region. Tajikistan in particular has been a focal point for this movement, and the government there has made a conscious effort to
revive the legacy of the Samanid empire, the first Tajik-dominated state in the region after the Arab advance. For instance, the
President of Tajikistan, Emomalii Rahmon, dropped the Russian suffix "-ov" from
his surname and directed others to adopt Tajik names when registering births.[56]
According to a government announcement in October 2009, approximately 4,000
Tajik nationals have dropped "ov" and "ev" from their surnames since the start of the
year.[57]

In an interview to Iranian news media in May 2008, Tajikistan's deputy culture

minister said that Tajikistan would study the issue of switching its Tajik alphabet
from Cyrillic to the Persian script used in Iran and Afghanistan when the Emomalii Rahmon with then Russian
government feels that "the Tajik people became familiar with the Persian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2009
alphabet".[58] More recently, the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan seeks to
have the nation's language referred to as "Tajiki-Farsi" rather than "Tajik." The
proposal has drawn criticism from Russian media since the bill seeks to remove the Russian language as the mode of interethnic
communication.[59] In 1989, the original name of the language (Farsi) was added to its official name in brackets. However, Rahmon's
government renamed the language to simply 'Tajiki' in 1994. On October 2009, Tajikistan adopted the law that removes Russian as
the "language for interethnic communication."[60]

See also
Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County
Tajiks of Xinjiang
Bukharan Jews

Notes and references

1. Country Factfiles. Afghanistan, page 153. // Atlas. Fourth Edition. Editors: Ben Hoare, Margaret Parrish.
Publisher: Jonathan Metcalf. First published in Great Britain in 2001 by Dorling Kindersley Limited. London:
Dorling
Kindersley, 2010, 432 pages. ISBN 9781405350396 "Population: 28.1 million
Religions: Sunni Muslim 84%, Shi'a Muslim 15%, other 1%
Ethnic Mix: Pashtun 38%, Tajik 25%, Hazara 19%, Uzbek, Turkmen, other 18%"
2. "Population of Afghanistan"(https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html). The World
Factbook. Central Intelligence Agency(CIA). Retrieved 2012-08-09.
3. "Tajikistan" (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ti.html#People). The World Factbook.
Central Intelligence Agency. May 5, 2010. Retrieved 2010-05-26.
4. Richard Foltz (1996). "The Tajiks of Uzbekistan". Central Asian Survey. 15 (2): 213216.
doi:10.1080/02634939608400946(https://doi.org/10.1080%2F02634939608400946) .
5. Karl Cordell, "Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe", Routledge, 1998. p. 201: "Consequently , the
number of citizens who regard themselves as a Tjiks is difficult to determine. Tajikis within and outside of the republic,
Samarkand State University (SamGU) academic and international commentators suggest that there may be between
six and seven million Tajiks in Uzbekistan, constituting 30% of the republic's 22 million population, rather than the
official figure of 4.7%(Foltz 1996;213; Carlisle1995:88).
6. Lena Jonson (1976) "Tajikistan in the New Central Asia", I.B.Tauris, p. 108: "According to official Uzbek statistics
there are slightly over 1 million Tajiks in Uzbekistan or about 3% of the population. The unof
ficial figure is over 6
million Tajiks. They are concentrated in the Sukhandarya, Samarqand and Bukhara regions."
7. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2002-10-01)."Long-time Tajik refugees return home from
Pakistan" (http://www.unhcr.org/3d99d4654.html). UNHCR. Retrieved 2012-06-11.
8. Russian 2010 Census results; see alsoEthnic groups in Russia
 9. This figure only includes Tajiks from Afghanistan. The population of people from Afghanistan the United States is
estimated as 80,414 (2005).United States Census Bureau."US demographic census"(http://factfinder.census.gov/s
ervlet/IPTable?_bm=y&-reg=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201:501;ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201PR:501;ACS_2005_E
ST_G00_S0201T:501;ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201TPR:501&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201&-qr_name=
ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201PR&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S0201T&-qr_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_S02
01TPR&-ds_name=ACS_2005_EST_G00_&-T ABLE_NAMEX=&-ci_type=A&-redoLog=true&-charIterations=045&-g
eo_id=01000US&-format=&-_lang=en). Retrieved 2008-01-23. Of this number, approximately 65% are Tajiks
according to a group of American researchers (Barbara Robson, Juliene Lipson, Farid Younos, Mariam Mehdi).
Robson, Barbara and Lipson, Juliene (2002) "Chapter 5(B)- The People: Theajiks T and Other Dari-Speaking
Groups" (http://www.cal.org/co/afghan/apeop.html)The Afghans their history and cultureCultural Orientation
Resource Center, Center for Applied Linguistics, Washington, D.C., OCLC 56081073 (http://worldcat.org/oclc/56081
073).
10. "Ethnic composition of the population in Kyrgyzstan 19992007"(http://www.stat.kg/stat.files/din.files/census/501000
3.pdf) (PDF). Retrieved 2012-06-11.
11. "" (http://www.gov.cn/test/2006-04/14/content_254445.htm). www.gov.cn. Retrieved 6 December 2016.
12. This figure only includes Tajiks from Afghanistan. The population of people with descent from Afghanistan in Canada
is 48,090 according to Canada's 2006 Census. a Tjiks make up an estimated 27% of the population of Afghanistan.
The Tajik population in Canada is estimated rom
f these two figures.Ethnic origins, 2006 counts, for Canada(http://w
ww12.statcan.ca/english/census06/data/highlights/ethnic/pages/Page.cfm?Lang=E&Geo=PR&Code=01&Data=Coun
t&Table=2&StartRec=1&Sort=3&Display=All&CSDFilter=5000).
13. State statistics committee of Ukraine National composition of population, 2001 census
(http://2001.ukrcensus.gov.u
a/results/nationality_population/nationality_popul1/select_5/?botton=cens_db&box=5.1W&k_t=00&p=75&rz=1_1&rz
_b=2_1%20%20%20&n_page=4)(Ukrainian)
14. C.E. Bosworth; B.G. Fragner (1999). "TDJK". Encyclopaedia of Islam(CD-ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed.). Leiden, The
Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
15. M. Longworth Dames; G. Morgenstierne & R. Ghirshman (1999). "AF GHNISTN". Encyclopaedia of Islam(CD-
ROM Edition v. 1.0 ed.). Leiden, The Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill NV.
16. Amad Tafaol,"DEHQN" at Encyclopaedia Iranica (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/dehqan)
17. Arlund, Pamela S. (2006).An Acoustic, Historical, And Developmental Analysis Of Sarikol ajik T Diphthongs. PhD
Dissertation (http://repositories.tdl.org/tdl/handle/10106/438)
. The University of Texas at Arlington. p. 191.
18. Felmy, Sabine (1996). The voice of the nightingale: a personal account of the W
akhi culture in Hunza (https://books.
google.com/books?id=gTtuAAAAMAAJ&q). Karachi: Oxford University Press. p. 4. ISBN 0-19-577599-6.
19. "TAJIK i. THE ETHNONYM: ORIGINS AND APPLICATION" (http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/tajik-i-the-ethnony
m-origins-and-application).
20. Zerjal, Tatiana; Wells, R. Spencer; Yuldasheva, Nadira; Ruzibakiev, Ruslan; Tyler-Smith, Chris (2002)."A Genetic
Landscape Reshaped by Recent Events: Y -Chromosomal Insights into Central Asia"(https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p
mc/articles/PMC419996). The American Journal of Human Genetics. 71 (3): 466482. PMC 419996 (https://www.nc
bi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC419996) . PMID 12145751 (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12145751).
doi:10.1086/342096 (https://doi.org/10.1086%2F342096).
21. Library of Congress: Country Studies; "Tajikistan Historical & Ethnic Background"(http://www.country-data.com/cgi
-bin/query/r-13606.html): "Contemporary Tajiks are the descendants of ancient Eastern Iranian inhabitants of Central
Asia, in particular the Soghdians and the Bactrians."
22. Cambridge EncyclopediaVol. 8, pg. 2246, "Bactria Geography, History, Tokharistan, Archaeological sites", with this
quote "The Bactrians are one of the ancestral lines of the modern-dayajiks,
T of Central Asia."
23. Tajikistan: History (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/581047/Tajikistan/214553/History)Britannica Online
Encyclopedia
24. Richard Nelson Frye, "Persien: bis zum Einbruch des Islam"(original English title: "The Heritage Of Persia"),
German version, tr. by Paul Baudisch, Kindler Verlag AG, Zrich 1964, pp. 485498
25. Frye, Richard Nelson (1996). The heritage of Central Asia from antiquity to the u
Trkish expansion (https://books.goo
gle.com/books?id=0RSXSu1x9hwC). Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers. p. 4.ISBN 1-55876-110-1.
26. Lena Jonson, Tajikistan in the new Central Asia, (I.B.Tauris, 2006), 18.
27. Political History of the Chlukyas of Badami by Durga Prasad Dikshit p.192
28. The First Spring: The Golden Age of India by Abraham Eraly p.91
29. C.E. Bosworth/B.G. Fragner, "Tdjk", in Encyclopaedia of Islam, Online Edition: "... In Islamic usage, [Tdjk]
eventually came to designate the Persians, as opposed to urks
T [...] the oldest citation for it which Schraeder could
find was in verses of Djall al-Dn Rm ..."
30. Ali Shir Nava'i Muhakamat al-lughataintr. & ed. Robert Devereaux (Leiden: Brill) 1966 p6
31. "Tajik" (http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/581024/Tajik). Encyclopdia Britannica. Retrieved November 6,
2011. "There were about 5,000,000 in Afghanistan, where they constituted about one-fifth of the population.
"
32. Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress (1997)."Afghanistan: Tajik" (http://www.country-data.com/cgi-b
in/query/r-39.html). Country Studies Series. Library of Congress. Retrieved 2007-12-19.
33. Bellew, Henry Walter (1891) An inquiry into the ethnography of AfghanistanThe Oriental Institute, Woking, Butler &
Tanner, Frome, United Kingdom,page 126 (https://books.google.com/books?id=fAkEAAAAMAAJ&pg=P A126),
OCLC 182913077 (https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/182913077)
34. Markham, C. R. (January 1879) "The Mountain Passes on the Afghan Frontier of British India"
Proceedings of the
Royal Geographical Society and Monthly Record of Geography(New Monthly Series) 1(1): pp. 3862, p.48
35. Suny, Ronald Grigor (2006). "History and Foreign Policy: From Constructed Identities to "Ancient Hatreds" East of
the Caspian". In Shaffer, Brenda. The Limits of Culture: Islam and Foreign Policy
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Further reading
Dupree, Louis (1980). Afghanistan. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Jawad, Nassim (1992).Afghanistan: A Nation of Minorities. London: Minority Rights Group International.ISBN 0-
946690-76-6.
Rahmonov, Emomali (2001). The Tajiks in the Mirror of History: From the Aryans to the Samanids. Guernsey, United
Kingdom: London River Editions. p. 272.ISBN 0-9540425-0-6.
World Almanac and Book of Facts(2003 ed.). World Almanac Books. ISBN 0-88687-882-9.

External links
Tajiks at Encyclopdia Britannica Online
Tajik The Ethnonym: Origins and Application at Encyclopdia Iranica

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